Wednesday, October 31, 2012

hi friends! I hope all my fellow NYCers survived the
hurricane safe and sound. my area of BK was thankfully untouched; I am
so freaking grateful to have had power through this whole ordeal.so the official launch date of Secret Identities is rapidly
coming upon us (remember, remember, the 5th of November, woooo!)
although you can still pick up an early copy if you’re in the NYC area
and get to visit the Museum of Chinese in America, which I highly
suggest doing. Right now through February they have an amazing API
comics exhibit up featuring work by fine folks like my dear friend Alice Meichi Li
and people I have had the great pleasure and privilege of paneling
with, like Larry Hama and GB Tran, all of whom also contributed to SI!

I was approached by Keith at
the beginning of the summer and asked to contribute to the book. I
almost could not believe that I was going to be in a real published
anthology and consequently sat on the news for months, although I was
dying to tell everyone (and now all of you have to get flooded with news
about this, muwahaha). but I cannot even begin to describe how huge of
an honor this is for me.

I’ve been drawing since I was a kid. actually, when I started at NYU
I’d started out in the psychology program with the goal of becoming a
therapist (L O L HOW MINDS CHANGE) and then realized it was really not
for me. but by then it was too late to change majors since I’d dived
right in, so I just rode out the program, which I finished early, and
turned my goal elsewhere, and in my sophomore year of college really got
into drawing comics. I started Angry Girl in a very transitional and
turbulent summer between my junior year and the start of my last
semester and it has taken me further than I ever could have imagined.

for the anthology I drew a two-page thank-you comic for Dr. Jan and Marica Vilcek, founders of the Vilcek Foundation,
an organization that gives grants to immigrants working in the arts and
sciences. The Vilceks themselves are immigrants, having left
Czechoslovakia for the States in the sixties and becoming superstars in
their respective fields of medical research and art history. The comic
was written by Jeff Yang, one of our editors for the anthology.

When I was a kid, I LOVED comic books. I bought every X-Men
comic I could get my hands on. I was obsessed. This was a long time ago
and back then the idea of Asian American superheroes was pretty much
unheard of. This is not to say that Asian/Asian Americans weren’t in
comic books. The one prominent one I remember reading was Sunfire.

Sunfire is a temperamental and arrogant Japanese mutant
who can generate superheated plasma and fly. Not suited for teamwork,
Sunfire was only briefly a member of the X-Men and has kept limited ties
to the team since. He has had some presence in the greater Marvel
Universe.

Not someone I could get behind.

The
only time I really felt the lack of Asian American representation was
when I watched/read G.I. Joe. I rooted for the two Asian/Asian American
guys, Quick Kick (Right) and Storm Shadow (Left).

You might recognize Quick Kick as Angry Asian Man’s logo but I
vaguely remembered him as a child. The character I always rooted for and
played with was Storm Shadow. And even though he was a bad guy, when I
played with him he always became a good guy. And I secretly imagined the
guy under the mask actually looked exactly like me.

Monday, October 29, 2012

I was lucky enough to be included in the recent publication Shattered: Secret Identities Vol. 2.
Shattered is the second in a line of anthologies that seek to bring
multicultural voices and perspectives through the medium of comics. It’s
a book full of amazing, original art and stories by creators like Fred
Chao (Johnny Hiro), Greg Pak (The Incredible Hulk), Larry Hama (GI Joe), and tons more.

I got to work with Ming Doyle (Future Foundation, Loneliest Astronauts, Girl Comics),
who’s not only an amazing illustrator, but without a doubt, one of my
favorite comic artists in the world. We contributed a gallery piece that
basically made me into a superhero. Here’s what I look like, in a nice
sepia tone: